pre-existent system of beliefs, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is treated as false. Only when the
older and the newer experiences are congruous enough to mutually
apperceive and modify each other, does what we treat as an advance in
truth result. [Having written of this point in an article in reply to
Mr. Joseph's criticism of my humanism, I will say no more about truth
here, but refer the reader to that review.[115]] In no case, however,
need truth consist in a relation between our experiences and something
archetypal or trans-experiential. Should we ever reach absolutely
terminal experiences, experiences in which we all agreed, which were
superseded by no revised continuations, these would not be _true_, they
would be _real_, they would simply _be_, and be indeed the angles,
corners, and linchpins of all reality, on which the truth of everything
else would be stayed. Only such _other_ things as led to these by
satisfactory conjunctions would be 'true.' Satisfactory connection of
some sort with such termini is all that the word 'truth' means. On the
common-sense stage of thought sense-presentations serve as such termini.
Our ideas and concepts and scientific theories pass for true only so far
as they harmoniously lead back to the world of sense.

I hope that many humanists will endorse this attempt of mine to trace
the more essential features of that way of viewing things. I feel almost
certain that Messrs. Dewey and Schiller will do so. If the attackers
will also take some slight account of it, it may be that discussion will
be a little less wide of the mark than it has hitherto been.

FOOTNOTES:

[105] [Reprinted from _The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and
Scientific Methods_, vol. II, No. 5, March 2, 1905. Also reprinted, with
slight changes in _The Meaning of Truth_, pp. 121-135. The author's
corrections have been adopted for the present text. ED.]

[106] [Written _apropos_ of the appearance of three articles in _Mind_,
N. S., vol. XIV, No. 53, January, 1905: "'Absolute' and 'Relative'
Truth," H. H. Joachim; "Professor James on 'Humanism and Truth,'" H. W.
B. Joseph; "Applied Axioms," A. Sidgwick. Of these articles the second
and third "continue the humanistic (or pragmatistic) controversy," the
first "deeply connects with it." ED.]

[107] Professor Baldwin, for example. His address 'On Selective
Thinking' (_Psychological Review_, [vol. V], 1898, reprinted in his
volume, _Development and Evolutio